


and the universe yawned

by cartoonmoomba



Category: Persona 3, Persona Series
Genre: F/F, F/M, Multi, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-30
Updated: 2014-07-30
Packaged: 2018-02-11 02:55:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2050893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cartoonmoomba/pseuds/cartoonmoomba
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Your funeral is nothing like the movies made them out to be. After all, this is a love story. [Minako, Ryoji, Mitsuru.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	and the universe yawned

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: P3P does not belong to me. Stanzas pulled are courtesy of Auden, Neruda, and Cummings.

_and the universe yawned_

.

.

* * *

 

 

The day you are born, there is a storm outside the hospital. The grey sky weeps and the winds howl and the earth shudders beneath their violent touch; a cacophony of noise, a possible prelude of things to come. But thousands of children arrive to the light of this world in the same moment that you do, and you are not presumptuous enough to assume such things. But even so, at the back of your mind years later, you can’t resist the thought that wanders through:

_Did you know?_

You open your eyes only minutes after your brother does and join his screaming, a quiet wail that only grows louder the more silent he falls. Your mother rests where she is, exhausted but exhilarated and watching the two of you with sparkling eyes. A kind nurse has brought her a cup of tea at her request, and she absentmindedly runs her fingers along the rim. Her fingertip dips inside a crack, a sharp pain that she instinctively flinches at – in the room where you are held, your breath hitches in a momentary pause of silence.

The second passes; you open your mouth again, and begin crying.

* * *

 

.

_and the crack in the tea cup opens_

_a lane to the land of the dead._

.

* * *

 

Death offers you his hand when you are six, standing on a road that is witness to the corpses of your family. Above all, the night sky seeps green and the yellow moon winks from where it is perched outside the atmosphere. The creature is the one all nightmares stem from, the darkness lurking in the collective consciousness of humanity that ebbs and flows between dreams and fills them with fright. He hovers before you with marble coffins for wings, and the abyssal depths of his eyes are a force that pull you under and drown with a crescendo of dark water.

He breaks every bone of your fragile fingers when you touch him. You scream, and he settles in the back of your skull with a satisfied laugh.

* * *

 

.

_in headaches and in worry_

_vaguely life leaks away_

.

* * *

 

His possessive claws cinch around your tiny waist as your body grows and expands, your legs becoming leaner and more graceful as you navigate the planes of your life. At first he visits you in the form that would bring you the most comfort, with pale skin and bright eyes and clothes that fall around the sharp angles of his bones. But the more you grow the more he forgets about who he is, becoming consumed with the daily nuances and details of your life; the boys who try to hold your hand, the one girl that dares kiss you when you are twelve and are both sunbathing in her backyard. His sweltering jealousy burns a chasm inside of your stomach and so you run away from all of them, bouncing from relative to relative, all of them unable to handle having you for more than a few years at a time.

As your face narrows and your chest rounds and your hair brushes the top of your breasts, he tugs at the fraying edges of his striped ensemble and curls into your body in the one hidden hour where he can be real. You breathe easily through your nose as he presses his lips to your temple, a bitter goodbye whispered into the shell of your ear.

* * *

 

.

_and Time will have his fancy_

_to-morrow or to-day._

.

* * *

 

Ryoji whispers poetry against your lips, against the protruding slope of your ribcage. _“The years shall run like rabbits, for in my arms I hold the Flower of the Ages, and the first love of the world…”_ His lips travel lower still, and you bite your bottom lip in an attempt to keep away from the wrath of your dorm mates. His tongue caresses you and you give up with a gasp of his name into the quiet of the Dark Hour, the green light a baptism that washes your sins away until it is only the two of you on your bed and the yellow sliver of the moon. The snowfall outside continues its slow descent and the flakes paint the streets red.

He presses a kiss to the inside of your thigh, and you think of the cold touch of your Evoker tattooed to the skin of your temple. Of equally cold lips lingering there as you dreamed, so very long ago.

_“But all the clocks in the city began to whirr and chime: ‘O let not Time deceive you, You cannot conquer Time…”_

* * *

 

.

_i love you as certain dark things are to be loved,_

_  
in secret, between the shadow and the soul_

.

* * *

 

The day that you die is the day that no one remembers. Your skin is a sieve through which your soul slowly leaks, two months as your punishment for daring to defy the gods. You inhale oxygen and breathe out strands of your DNA, that special blueprint of your true self that will never get the chance to be passed on. Veins begin to bulge against the grey of your skin as your blood pumps overtime, your heart doing its damn best to keep you alive when the very _air_ now has the capacity to break you. You are both a newborn child choking on the fluid in its lungs and an old crone withering away, in the grand scheme of things.

You’re a dead girl walking until you’re finally, well, _not._

Walking, that is.

* * *

.

_o look, look in the mirror,_

_o look in your distress_

.

* * *

 

Your funeral is nothing like the movies made them out to be. The sun is bright in the fresh spring sky, a blinding blue and with nary a cloud. Stalks of planted bluebells and flowering hyacinths bloom in splotches of color amidst stone graves and marble statues; your casket rests beside a freshly dug grave, polished wood shining in the sunlight.

You watch what seems to be half the school arrive from your perch on your new gravestone, kicking your legs back against where your name is engraved. An illusion, of course – you can feel the barbed chains pulling at the tender skin of your wrists and upper torso, the stitches threading your lips and their screams into eternal silence. Even when you project yourself into a body that is ever youthful and mobile, the reminder of your immortality never leaves you. Your hair ruffles in the soft breeze (or at least you pretend it does, and so it follows) and the cold stone of the seal licks at your neck. You can hear voices begging, back at the place where you truly belong.

You ignore them, and instead direct your attention to the sound of Mitsuru’s motorbike. It cuts off at the gates (you can hear so much _better_ now, and so can you see and smell, but what use is perfection to you now that you’re dead?) and watch as heads turn in the direction of the Kirijo heiress. The crowd parts before her like the Red Sea as she strides to stand before your grave.

Her hair catches fire in the light, and you sigh with just a hint of wistfulness. _What I wouldn’t give to run away with you on your bike now, my love…_

Her eyes fall on to where you are sitting, and you attempt a smile. She stares right through you.

“ _It was late, late in the evening, the lovers they were gone, the clocks had ceased their chiming, and the deep river ran on…”_ Death quotes behind you as he materializes with no sound or shift in the air to announce his arrival. You glance back at him – sometimes he is Pharos, and sometimes he is Ryoji, and rarely he is Thanatos; but always a monster, hidden in the depths of his otherworldly irises. His lips curl up at you, and in the corners of them lurks the creeping darkness and the croon of dead souls. You grin back, the steel thread pulling at your gums and bleeding copper into your mouth.

“I feel like it should be raining,” you announce to him and lean back against his chest. He is Ryoji for the time being, and the familiar heavy weight of his arms settles around your waist.

“What a selfish girl you are,” he mutters into your hair, pressing a kiss there nonetheless.

You both fall silent as the rest of your dorm mates arrive: Junpei and Yukari walk together, brought closer by your death than ever before. Ken trails after them, hands buried deep in his pockets and jaw quivering. Fuuka walks beside him with her hands clutched together and her knuckles straining white against her skin, eyes set stubbornly on anywhere but your bed of wood and silk. Akihiko and Shinjiro are the last to arrive with Koromaru and Aigis at their side.

All look appropriately morose and heartbroken. They crowd around Mitsuru who has yet to speak or even move a muscle. She just stands there staring right through your breastbone with her beautiful red eyes glassy and wide.

The spot she has been unintentionally focusing on begins to feel as if it is burning. You shift against Ryoji’s body, glad for the solidity that he offers in your lives as phantoms. He reaches up with one hand and presses his cold fingertips straight to your bones and the touch chills the guilt right out of you.

 _“_ She will love again,” he offers you, a hard edge to his voice that belies his jealousy. Your mouth quirks with amusement, the familiar churning in your gut starting although you are no longer one and the same.

“And yet you remain a part of me, branded into my soul,” you tell him as his eyes flicker down to meet yours, knowing of the feeling that is beginning to spread through your blood. The hand pressed to your chest trails down to your torso and he splays his fingers over the thin cloth of your shirt. The icy touch seeps through the material and you close your eyes with a pleased sigh, craning your head back and baring your neck to him.

He makes a sound of approval, deep within his throat and it is the growl of Thanatos. The echo of the monster inside of your body recedes.

“After all,” Death murmurs, pressing a chaste, cold kiss against the papery skin of your neck, “This is a love story.”

* * *

 

.

_Death(having lost) put on his universe_

_and yawned:_

.

* * *

 

Your funeral is nothing like the movies made them out to be. You watch the casket with your body be lowered into the fresh dirt, safe and tortured all at once from the loving embrace of Death. Your eyes are trained on the tears that finally fall from Mitsuru’s eyes, trailing down her beautiful face and hitting the earth like the rain that never comes.

* * *

 

.

 _it looks like rain._  

 


End file.
